Why we need more friendships in our 40's
And how they might look, behave, and blossom differently
A happy life is U-shaped, apparently.
And our 40’s exist right at the bottom of that curve, with 47.2 years statistically our most unhappy age - (so science says).
And if you are a millennial, like I am - apparently it hits us even worse. In our defence the world has been fucking insane since we stepped into adulthood and delivered on none of its financially secure promises while we burn out in a corner trying to live up to everyone’s expectations while social media took our parent’s generations phrase of, “keeping up with the Jones’s” and made us have to keep up with everyone around the world.
But having come through a decade where some friendships fell down the list of things I had space for in my week, fragmented, felt further away, ended or even imploded my hope is that friendship in my 40’s could in fact hold up the arse of my “U”.
I was never “popular”.
I wasn’t necessarily excluded, but I was never popular.
Some of that was self initiated, some a consequence of just who I authentically was. As a teen growing up in Blanchardstown, I might have felt a nudge too